NSW Government STRA Register fast approaching

Short Term Rental Accommodation (STRA) Regulations are set to change as part of the ongoing implementation of NSW Department of Planning. All holiday rentals with NSW addresses will require a STRA registration number to ensure that your listings are compliant and to continue hosting your properties online via your own website and any other 3rd party portal.

All properties (new or existing) in NSW requires an application to register your individual property details in order to retain active listings on the following platforms.

• Agency Holiday Website
• VRBO and Instant Booking Channels such as Expedia and Wotif
• Booking.com
• Airbnb

Your STRA registration number is required to be added to all property listings prior to Monday 1st November 2021.

Adding your property involves applying for a STRA registration number with the New South Wales Government and adding your registration number to Sherlock Trust Manager or SherlockPRO.

GRACE PERIOD

The NSW Government will update the STRA register on 24th September 2021 to allow hosts to register but delay the fire and safety requirement until 1st March 2022. The grace period has been put in place to assist with recent lockdowns to allow hosts an extra four months to ensure their holiday rental complies with the fire safety standards.

However registration of your properties are required before 1st November 2021 to take bookings for summer season.

We have been working with the NSW Government to make the process as easy as possible – below is some more information to help you complete the process.

Click here for more information
How to register

1. Add your property to the NSW STRA Register.
To add your property to the NSW Government STRA Register, follow these steps:

Visit NSW Government’s Planning Portal

Register an account in the portal and log in to complete the online registration form. You can log in using your Service NSW account

Pay the registration fee of $65 and submit your application

Once your application is submitted, take note of the registration number provided, as you will need to add this to your Airbnb listing

Visit the NSW Government Planning Portal here
2. Add your STRA Registration number to your Airbnb listing.
To add your STRA registration number to your Airbnb listing, follow these steps:

Once you receive your registration number, go to your Airbnb Host account page

Click on your listing then Policies and rules > Laws and regulations > Regulations

Add the number you received on the government portal into the Airbnb registration number field

Click Save

Login to your Airbnb account here

The post STRA Registration by 1st November appeared first on Sherlock Software.

Sherlock Software offers innovative software solutions to manage your entire agency.  Our solutions include property management software for residential, commercial, sales and holiday management trust accounting, sales management CRM, document archiving, property management inspection app, Owner and Tenant portal and Real Estate websites that integrate with all major portals as a channel manager. Sherlock has a long history in the business and a proven track record, offering Real Estate businesses practical software solutions and extensive industry experience.

Benefits of One provider

Integration: Working with One Service provider will ensure that your business solutions are properly integrated laying a virtual framework for your business to grow.

One Support Network: Utlising One Support team to assist you when required offering the best client services, knowledge and tools to improve your day to day tasks.

Reduce Costs: One Software provider allows you to pay only one bill per month which can save you hundreds per year in licensing fees with our all inclusive packages.

Streamline Your Processes: Improved productivity and transparency within your agency, means you can streamline your day to day processes and manage all of your business needs.

Strong Relationships: Build and maintain a relationship with One Software company who understands your business and adapts to adding additional modules as required.

Intuitive usability and Training: Software from the same provider follows the same style of usability. Having similar controls and functionality makes the software intuitive reducing staff learning multiple technology.

Flexibility:  Software package inclusions can be scaled according to the changing needs of the company. Sherlock offers a range of products that are suitable for different types of property management as a single or split trust account offering your flexibility to adapt as you grow.

Sherlock takes responsibility: Any issues and problems that occur, Sherlock takes responsibility for their technology. We work together as a team to solve any issues you may have. In contrast, a multi-provider environment can have you going from one to the next to get a problem resolved, with each party blaming the next. Reduce delays with One support team to assist with your queries on the same day.

It’s just easier: With One phone number – it’s just easier and less time consuming dealing with One Provider.

Managing a business with multiple departments and requirements can be complex at the best of times and so can the technology you implement. If you are using multiple service providers with minimal to no integration, the increased workload is frustrating, costly and time consuming.

Sherlock has developed technology that allows all users across various areas of the business to have One support team that will facilitate all enquiries. If you are using different service providers for different applications and something goes wrong, who should you call?

Agencies are looking to move away from multiple tier providers to avoid confusion and delay when you call someone; each service provider will blame the other and you will have to spend a lot of time and effort working with them to get your problem resolved.

It is far easier to resolve your issues with One support team, One development team and One vision for your business needs. Costs are reduced dramatically with One software provider.

Bundling services ultimately saves you money. There are many reasons for this including:

• The more solutions we provide, the best the bundle rates will be
• More freedom to customise your service to fit your business
• Ability to add new products or remove products if change of direction
• Your finance team will spend less time on billing and reconciling
• Easier to plan and budget
• Your employees will be more efficient and productive

The complexity of having more than One provider can be easily solved with using One company to provide all your software solutions. One software provider can be very beneficial to your business and we look forward to discussing your agency requirements.

For more information contact Phil 0418 441 304 or email [email protected]

The post One Provider to manage your entire agency appeared first on Sherlock Software.

We live in a digital world where everything is instant and no matter how hard you try to please all your owners, tenants, buyers, creditors and guests (for our holiday agents) consumers can provide feedback on any platform – any time.

Reviews are based on an individual opinion about a service, situation or in some cases something that wasn’t even factual.  Anyone can provide their opinion on the internet and to vent their frustration at how bad they feel you handled a situation, even if they were at fault, which of course is not stated in their remarks.

Engage with your Customer Base

Agencies can assist their business by responding with professionalism to the positive and negative feedback. This ensures that when others read these remarks you have been proactive in your approach to addressing any issues raised.

If you don’t publicly respond to negative reviews, other potential customers only see the negative and do not understand that there are two sides to the story. 

Business owners and property managers should engaged as much as possible to create customer centricity. This is a powerful tool and is the key to success with online resources. Feedback is vitally important for a business and is one of the elements that drives continuous improvement. Best policy is to change a negative into a positive.

Create a relationship with the unhappy reviewer and at the end they will respect you and your business much more. It may make them think twice about leaving a negative review in the future.  You may even gain a very loyal customer from the experience! 

Why you should never delete a bad review

We have been asked the question many times, how can I delete my bad google reviews? The answer is simple, you don’t. In business you have to take the good with the bad and focus on receiving more and more positive reviews. I’m sure most businesses at one point in time have received a bad review from an unhappy customer. Some are justified and some completely unjustified.

Whatever the case may be, 92% of consumers now read online reviews. This makes your reviews and the way your business handles them very important.

How to handle a bad review

It’s human nature to want to respond to a bad review in a negative tone and to reply with a “dose of their own medicine”, and throw insults at how you don’t want customers like them. You cannot make the problem just disappear by deleting the review. Unfortunately this does more harm than good. First of all, it doesn’t make the problem go away,  it just deletes the negative review so other customers can’t see it. Second, it does not make you look good in front of possibly thousands of potential customers, as people notice when bad comments are deleted. Thirdly, it isn’t always easy to delete these public reviews in the first place. Review platforms have actually improved business across the board as people are more accountable for their actions and the way they resolve conflict. These review platforms are keeping businesses and consumers on their toes. 

The Best way to respond

The most professional thing you can do when a customer leaves a negative review is to respond accordingly. Doing this will avoid the situation escalating to a point that gets out of control and can damage your reputation. 

In fact you should respond to as many reviews as possible, the good, the bad and even the ugly! Make it known that you are extremely sorry for the upset caused and that you would like to work with the customer to resolve their frustrations and issues in a friendly and proactive manner. Even if this customer is not willing to listen or discuss the issue, you have to take the professional route and offer some type of resolution. 

We ask all our clients to embrace reviews and respond in the appropriate fashion.  If you don’t have a Google My Business account that is linked with your website, start one today. With this platform you can manage and respond to reviews on Google, which is a great way to build up loyalty among your customers and open another line of communication.

Take advantage of the opportunity review platforms give you, and always respond, whether they are good or bad. 

For more information contact Kristy on 0431 74 7253 or email [email protected]

The post Reviews are hugely beneficial to your business appeared first on Sherlock Software.